BBC insiders say Davie must apologise to Trump or risk White House coverage

BBC boss Tim Davie must make a “groveling” apology to Donald Trump for a misleading Panorama report or risk the broadcasters White House access, insiders said.

Pressure continued to mount on the Director-General ahead of a letter to MPs from BBC Chairman Samir Shah, which is expected to concede that viewers were “unintentionally” misled by the editing of a Panorama film.

The programme, shown a week before the 2024 Presidential election, spliced together two parts of a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021, before the storming of the Capitol by his supporters, giving the impression that his words incited the attack.

The incident was included in a leaked dossier, compiled by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC on editorial issues, which also cited evidence of anti-Israel bias on Gaza by BBC Arabic and a reluctance to tackle controversial transgender issues.

The White House expressed its anger on Friday with Karoline Leavitt, President Trump’s press secretary, describing the BBC as “100% fake news”.

According to BBC sources, Shah is set to apologise for the “misleading” editing of the Panorama film, in a detailed response to the criticisms on Monday.

He is expected to say that the BBC should have been clearer that two parts of a Trump speech had been spliced together but there was no intent to mislead viewers.

The BBC’s reporting is widely viewed in the US with the corporation positioning itself as an impartial alternative to partisan networks like Fox News. The right-wing GB News is winning friends in the White House and could be awarded reporting credentials after launching a new Washington D.C. show.

One BBC news figure said: “This will have serious repercussions for the BBC’s Washington team. If Trump launches a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the BBC, as he has with US networks, that would be disastrous. Tim needs to give a groveling apology personally to the President.”

Sir John Whittingdale, former Conservative Culture Secretary, said an apology for the Trump edit alone, would not defuse the row. He told The i Paper: “There needs to be an overhaul of the whole editorial control process and possibiling a strengthening of procedures in the next Charter.”

The apology is set to be hugely embarrassing for Davie, Shah and BBC News chief Deborah Turness since all three sit on the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, which had been presented with concerns about the editing months ago by Prescott. The Committee took no action to correct the selective editing at the time.

News CEO Turness and her deputy Jonathan Munro, both defended Panorama’s journalism, when Prescott’s concerns were investigated internally.

Shah is also expected to set out changes to the management and oversight of BBC Arabic, in a letter to MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee, which will also be shared with BBC staff.

The change to BBC Arabic comes after a report from The Daily Telegraph claimed the BBC has been forced to correct two stories a week about the Gaza conflict since the Oct 7 attacks on Israel.

Another BBC insider said of the crisis: “It’s not just individual errors, which can happen. On all these issues, there is a pattern of institutional groupthink, a metropolitan bias. The bosses need to tackle that or people will ask, what is a licence-fee funded BBC for?”

There is particular anger within the BBC newsroom that anchor Martine Croxall was rebuked by the corporation’s Editorial Complaints Unit for changing the words “pregnant people” to “women”, and raised an eyebrow, during a news channel broadcast last Summer.

Croxall was deemed to have broken the BBC’s impartiality rules on the controversial subject of trans identity but has not been sanctioned by news bosses.

The insider said Davie, whose background is in marketing not news, should appoint a senior journalist as deputy Director-General, with specific responsibility to enforce impartiality and standards across the BBC’s newsrooms.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy heaped further pressure on Davie when she expressed her dismay at the “countless conversations” she has had to conduct with BBC leaders about editorial failings, including the Gaza documentary withdrawn over a contributor with Hamas links.

Nandy told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show that there were a series of “very serious allegations” about the broadcaster.

The Culture Secretary said she was confident that chairman Shah is “treating this with the seriousness that that demands” and will give a full report to the parliamentary select committee on Monday.

But Nandy expressed concern about “editorial standards” at the BBC, saying that “the sort of language that is used in reporting is entirely inconsistent. It doesn’t always meet the highest standards.”

Analysis: Who’s going to take the hit?

Ask Tim Davie what his biggest headache is running the BBC and he will tell you “navigating the culture wars.”

In an increasingly polarised news world, the BBC is bombarded by complaints from every side over its coverage of hot button issues like Israel-Gaza and trans identity.

For the beleaguered Director-General, the fact that millions of people still watch and listen to the BBC’s reporting suggests they view the corporation as upholding its commitment to “impartiality”, whatever squalls threaten to blow it off course.

But the Prescott dossier, rolling together serious complaints about all those controversial topics, could be a crisis too far even for “Teflon Tim.”

Supportive former BBC news executives are shocked at the splicing together of a Trump speech to give the misleading impression of his conduct before the Capitol riots.

The BBC is now set to apologise for an error it refused to acknowledge for months, apparently hoping it would just go away. And an angry White House will likely have to be placated.

Davie can’t expect to be across every contributor to BBC Arabic and relies on his executives to deal with problems like a newsroom deeply split over the reporting of trans issues.

News supremo Deborah Turness could be in the firing line, if the tradition of “deputy heads must roll” to protect the DG continues.

Whilst many in the BBC feel the row has been whipped up by the BBC’s enemies in the press and Tory party, the mea culpa offered by Chairman Samir Shah for the errors exposed, could yet lead to scalps right at the top.

Peter Fincham, the BBC One Controller forced to quit over the misleading editing of a trailer which appeared to show Queen Elizabeth II walking out of a photoshoot, said the Trump sequence was “a massive own goal. It could potentially have some big scalps at the BBC.”

Fincham told the TV Insiders podcast: “It’s hard to believe that someone in the BBC office, knowing the importance of impartiality and the scrutiny the BBC is under, when signing off this edit, didn’t say ‘That sequence clearly makes him look like he’s inciting his supporters to go to the Capitol and commit violence, when he honestly didn’t.’”

Instead of acknowledging the error, the BBC “kind of played dead and hoped nobody noticed. They must realise in the modern world you can’t do that, it will catch up with you,” Fincham said.

Davie has faced calls to explain the dossier or resign by figures including Boris Johnson. However others within the BBC are leading a fight back, arguing that the accusations, first reported by The Daily Telegraph, should be seen as a plot by right-wing forces seeking to undermine the BBC.

Today programme presenter Nick Robinson wrote on X: “Hands up all those who think Boris Johnson is well placed to lecture anyone else on upholding standards & admitting mistakes.”

Robinson said “there is a genuine concern about editorial standards and mistakes. There is also a political campaign by people who want to destroy the organisation…Both things are happening at the same time.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC chairman will provide a full response to the culture, media and sport committee on Monday.”